Young Scholars Workshop
At the Herzl Institute, Jerusalem
December 14-23, 2015

Project directors: Yoram Hazony and Joshua Weinstein

The Jewish Philosophical Theology project invites applications from graduate students and recent PhDs for a Young Scholars Bible and Philosophy Workshop in Jerusalem on December 14-23, 2015. Up to 20 students will be accepted to the program, which will be conducted in English by Institute scholars and invited speakers. Participants will attend seminars on philosophical issues in Hebrew Bible as well as Talmud and Midrash (classical rabbinic stories), present response papers, and visit historic sites in Jerusalem.

Philosophers often describe theism as the belief in the existence of a “perfect being” — a being that is said to possess all possible perfections, so that it is all-powerful, all-knowing, immutable, perfectly good, absolutely simple, and necessarily existent, among other qualities. However, there are reasons to question whether this conception of God’s nature is appropriate as a basis for Jewish theology, and indeed, for religious belief more generally. This conference seeks to bring together philosophers, theologians, scholars of Bible and scholars of rabbinic literature to take a fresh look at this notion of God as perfect being, asking whether it is consistent with Judaism’s foundational texts, or whether it needs to be revised or replaced by a theology that is better suited to Jewish thought.